


blankets and beds

by Shorty



Category: Free!
Genre: Blanket Forts, M/M, that is literally the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 10:53:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shorty/pseuds/Shorty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts like this. / / Or, Nitori builds a blanket fort.  This goes on for some time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blankets and beds

**Author's Note:**

> this sucks but to be honest i'm just glad i finished one of my eighteen in progress fics.

_It starts like this:_

…

Nitori walks into the dorm to the sound of muffled English music, which he immediately knows means Rin has his earphones turned up way louder than is probably good for him.  To add to the loud music, he’s also lying on his bed, arms crossed over his eyes and scowl deep on his face.

Nitori’s been Rin’s roommate long enough now to know that when his music is that loud, you don’t bother him.  Let alone when he’s got the other stuff going on.

So, he quietly goes and sits at his desk and starts his homework.

A half an hour later and he’s pretty sure Rin hasn’t moved an inch, or even a centimeter.  Maybe he hasn’t even twitched.  It’s not like Nitori was keeping some deep watch on the older boy, but still, when he turned back and looked at him, the scowl was there and the position was the same and even though he knows Rin will want absolutely nothing to do with anyone right now, least of all his roommate, he feels bad that his senpai is just lying there – for who knows how long, because Ai only just came in a half an hour ago – and he feels like he should do _something_.

The conflict of whether or not to engage the red haired boy and risk getting his head bit off, or _not_ engage the red haired boy and have to listen to some more loud – and, in Nitori’s opinion, crappy – music is finally solved by a sudden stroke of genius on the silver haired boys part.

The genius comes on because of the corner of his blanket hanging off the edge of his sort of made bed, something that sparks memories of kitchen chairs and blankets that seemed huge at the time and the calmness of the darkness whenever he was feeling sad or scared or lonely.

Of course, there’s really no way he could get Rin out of the bed and under a blanket draped over two chairs at this point, plus the tall boy probably wouldn’t fit, but he _does_ have an extra blanket in the closet.

He grabs the blanket off his bed and begins to tuck it and the spare into the bottom of his bed, so that they each cover a side and a half of Rin’s bed.

Rin definitely notices, if the quiet ‘tch’ is anything to come by, but he doesn’t start yelling or knock the blankets down or anything, so Nitori goes back to his homework, pleased with himself.

…

He wakes up the next morning hot, because it’s summer and he has two blankets thrown over him.

But besides that, Rin doesn’t mention what had happened the day before, and so Nitori figures at the very least he isn’t going to have to listen to Rin gripe about it.

That’s kind of like Rin saying he liked it.

…

It isn’t really a consistent thing.  It’s not like every time Rin is in a bad mood Nitori pulls out the blankets and then the clouds part and sunshine shines in through their window and they skip around the room. 

Honestly, it’s not even like the blankets come out half the times Rin is a in a pissy mood, because honestly Rin is in some sort of mood for mostly every day, and neither of them are in the dorm for a lot of those moods.  So, no, the whole blanket thing is not a regular part of their lives.

But, Nitori’s gotten pretty good at gauging Rin’s moods, and so whenever he thinks Rin is in the “I want to be left alone” mood or the “I’m wallowing in self-pity” mood, versus, say, the “come near me and I’ll show you what these teeth are good for” mood, he’ll grab the blankets and tuck them in so they drape over Rin’s bed.

Rin never pulls them down – at least, never when Nitori’s in the room or awake – and so Nitori figures, at the very least, the older boy doesn’t mind it enough to take it down.

…

One day, Nitori comes to the dorm after working on a project with some of his classmates and is entirely confused by the sight he enters to.

It’s actually not that confusing a sight – in fact its’s probabalt a familiar one at this point – it’s just.  Well.

Rin had never been the one to set up the blankets before.

And yet, hanging from Ai’s bed was his blanket and Rin’s and he could hear the loud music blasting from Rin’s earphones.

He’s so surprised he stands at the doorway for a few minutes, because he’s just assumed that Rin had only let him put the blankets up to humor him, and had never even thought about Rin _actually_ liking it – it had been more of a way for Nitori to feel like he was helping his senpai than an actual help.

But now Rin had set it up when Ai wasn’t even there, had found enough comfort in the darkness brought on by two blankets to choose to use it.

He’s aware of the door closing behind him as he stands there staring, but it isn’t until Rin pops his head out of the blankets that he stops.

“You can take your blanket back.  I’m done with it.” Rin says, before ducking back behind the blankets.  His music stops, and he comes out, pulls down the blankets, and tosses them on their respective beds.

Nitori, throughout all of this, has not moved.

“What?” Rin asks gruffly when he sees that Nitori still hasn’t moved.  “I just.  I kinda liked the blanket thing you did, so I tried it.  No big deal.”

His body language is of course saying the opposite, what with the sharp shrug that punctuates his words and the nervously angry frown on his lips, but Ai decides not to press into it, instead feeling happy that his senpai had liked the method he had used previously to relax him.

…

Once Rin makes amends with the Iwatobi boys, the blankets come out less and less.

It’s not like they never came out at all – Rin wasn’t magically one hundred percent not angry all the time.  He still got upset, still had a temper – the blankets would be pulled out for low swim times or little fights with his sister or mother or even the Iwatobi boys.

One night, as Nitori is helping Rin with his exercises on the bed, Rin stops halfway through and asks, “Can we put up the blankets?”

Nitori shakes his head yes and jumps up, grabbing the one off his bed and the extra in the closet and setting them up.  He hasn’t put the blankets up since the first time he walked in to them set up by Rin, and somehow it feels exciting to be doing it again.

Once he’s done, he steps back from the bed.  He’s not sure if Rin wants him to come in and help him finish the exercises or if him asking for the blankets to be put up meant that he wanted to be alone.

He only has a minute to worry, though, because Rin’s voice cuts through his thoughts.

“Quit standing out there like an idiot and get in here and help me count my sit ups.”

Nitori makes a noise of confirmation before lifting the flap of the blanket and climbing in with Rin.

It shouldn’t be any different than when he usually helps Rin, but the darkness makes everything seem calmer and more intimate, and Nitori can’t fight the creeping blush along his cheeks and Rin continues his work up in the still air.

Thank god it was practically pitch black under there, or Nitori might be in trouble.

…

Nitori is surprised by how often it happen, Rin inviting him onto his bed to sit in the dark together.

Something about blanket forts had always been comforting to Nitori – it was, obviously, why the whole thing had started.  As a child they had made him relax by the fact that there was nothing but darkness and warmth in them.  But when he goes in with Rin, he can’t help but feel on edge.

Most of the time Rin calls angrily to Nitori to keep count of his sit upd or whatever he is doing under the blankets, and so the space with be filled with Rin’s movement and the occasional number Ai will call out to Rin.

Still, one time, after what Nitori can only assume is a really bad day, Rin calls Nitori onto the bed with him and just continues to lay there, music blaring, eyes covered by crossed arms, as Nitori maneuvers over the older boys legs to sit at the foot of the bed.

They don’t talk that night, but Nitori wakes up the next morning with Rin already gone for his jog, lying at the foot of Rin’s bed and covered in his blanket.

…

The first time the blanket fort is set up for Nitori, it is Rin’s doing.

It’s not like Nitori would just say, “hey, I’m going to use your bed now so go away”, so obviously it is Rin’s doing, but still, it makes Nitori a little happier.

But anyway, he gets an F on a test.

An honest to god F.  Otherwise known as a, ‘hey pal you suck at this class’ F. 

And it’s not like he’s never done bad on a test before – granted, maybe not F bad on a test (F bad on a quiz, sure, but a test, no that was never lower than a C).  But he was kind of banking on getting an okay grade on this test so he wouldn’t have to worry about the other tests as much and instead he gets this.

An F.

He kind of clumsily climbs up into his bed and presses his face into his pillow and tries not to cry, because now he would have to study even _longer_ to make sure he got enough good grades to make up for this one bad one and if he didn’t he’d be off the swim team for _sure_ – something he wasn’t even that good at any way so why did he even try?

By the time Rin walks through the door he’s full out sobbing, so much he doesn’t even notice that Rin is there until his red head is peeked over the top of the bed and he’s telling Nitori to “get your ass down here now”.

Sniffling loudly – and, probably, embarrassingly disgustingly, Nitori climbs down the ladder and allows Rin to push him under the blankets Rin’s apparently set up without Nitori noticing.

“I don’t want you getting off that bed until you stop crying, okay?  I’m going to be back in a few hours and if I see that you’re still this upset over whatever it is your upset about, I’m not going to be happy, got it?”  Rn tells him, and Ai’s sure Rin can’t see him nod his head because of how dark it is, but Rin seems to leave satisfied, so.

Nitori ends up getting Rin’s pillow wet – which is really gross, thank god he knows where Rin keeps his spare pillow case – but feels better, comforted by the darkness and the warmth and the smell of Rin that surrounds him.

…

Somehow, after that, the whole thing stops being just for when they’re angry or sad, but also for when they’re nervous or excited or happy.

Nitori asks Rin if he can use the bed the night before a tournament, when he’s so nervous about his race the next day he can barely concentrate on anything else.

Rin ends up building it the next night, when they both come in first in their respective races.

They sit on his bed and Nitori can’t help but feel giddy at the smile he can barely make out on Rin’s face through the darkness.

Nitori realizes, as they sit their laughing over their win, that somewhere along the lines he’s gone from practically idolizing the older boy to being something like a friend to him.  He didn’t assume, of course, that Rin felt the same way – Rin had Nanase and the others, and even if he did think of Nitori as more than just his roommate, he was much closer to the others – something to do with, Ai was sure, the fact that they were all friends as children.

Still, as Rin went from talking about how his final push off had felt a little weak and how he needed to work on that to the movie his sister was begging him to go with her to over the weekend, Ai thinks that maybe, right now, he can at least pretend that they are a little more than friends.

…

The next time the blanket fort is built is a week later, and Nitori spends almost an hour in it while Rin is away (“you wanna come?  We’re gonna go see some movie – I don’t know what one though.  Nagisa picked, so it’s probably horror or something.”  “ah – no, thank you senpai!  I have homework I need to finish.”) curled up on Rin’s bed, not thinking of the homework he used as an excuse but instead the boy who owned the bed he was occupying.

It wasn’t like the happiness he got from Rin – Rin’s voice, Rin’s touch, Rin’s smile, Rin’s smell – was anything new.  Granted, at first it had simply been the adoration he felt towards the older boys swim performance and the happiness that came from Rin noticing him. 

But still, that had quickly turned into a small crush on the older boy.  So yeah.  None of this was new, per se.

What was new, however, was the fact that Rin was touching him a whole lot more.  Rin was smiling a whole lot more.  Rin was laughing and joking with Nitori and leaning in so close he could practically smell the chlorine on his skin and _Nitori was going crazy_.

He’d never really liked someone like this before.  He’d had small crushes, yeah, but those had simmered into nothing within a week or so.

But this?  Well, he wasn’t an expert, but he was pretty sure trying really hard not to pin someone down and kiss them every time they were together went beyond a simple crush.

It went beyond that, even, if Nitori allowed himself to daydream – which he did, often.

He wanted to – well, half the things he wanted to do make him cover his face in embarrassment for even thinking about it.  But he also found himself thinking about bland things that shouldn’t get him as excited as they did – holding hands and talking late into the night and little kisses good bye.

Even just thinking about it in passing made excitement bubble in his chest, and he frowned a little.

Yeah, he was definitely going to have to do something about that.

…

It takes him about a month before he finally does something.

It starts with, of course, a blanket fort.

Nitori sets it up while Rin is visiting his sister and mom – through he’d grumbled about it before leaving, something about how his sister had practically blackmailed him into going over to his house for lunch, saying that he didn’t visit enough, Nitori knew that he looked forward to time spent with his family, even if he did complain about it.

But.  Anyway.  The blanket fort was built.  And Ai was sitting on Rin’s bed, so nervous his stomach hurt, waiting for Rin to come back to the dorm.

He’d gotten a text ten minutes ago saying “im leaving”, but for all Nitori knows Rin could have sent  that and then spent another five minutes at his house.

He half hoped that was the case, because it would give him more time to sit there.  At the same time, he hoped it wouldn’t, because if he sat there much longer he knew he’d end up finding a way to back out.

Almost as soon as he thinks this, the dorm room bursts open, and Rin calls out.

“Hey, Ai.  I‘m back.  You won’t believe what my mom made – Hey.”  Nitori can just see the outline of Rin through the blankets, so he sees the older boy stop when he notices the blankets set up.  “Why do you have the blankets up?  Did anything bad happen?  Or is it just for fun.”

“N-nothing bad happened!  I’m just nervous.”  Nitori is quick to answer, and even though he can only see the outline of Rin it seems like the red haired boy relaxes slightly.

“So, hey, can I come in or do you need some alone time?”

Nitori almost says no – he could just back out now and nothing would happen.  “Come in.  It’s your bed.”

“You know that if you ever need it it’s yours, right?” Rin says as he crawls in.  “Anyway – what are you nervous about?”

“Um.  Well.”  He realizes all too late that he never actually planned what he was going to say, only what he would if he was turned down. 

“I like you.” He finally says, and as soon as he says it he’s blushing not only because of the fact that he just confessed but also because of how lamely he confessed – ‘I like you’?  If there was any chance of Rin returning his feelings it died with those words.

“Like, um.  Like, like-like me?” Rin says, sounding kind of confused, and honestly, those words make Nitori feel a little better, because even if he did confessed rather lamely and might be losing Rin, at least he didn’t respond to someone admitting their feelings with the rather elementary school ‘like-like’. 

 He giggles at Rin’s words, and it sounds nervous and jittery but hey, he has a right to be so.

“hey!  Don’t laugh at me!  For all I know you could be saying you like me _as a friend_!” Rin yells, but he sounds kind of happy, and Nitori hopes that it’s not just his imagination that makes it seem that way.

“Yes, Rin-senpai.  I ‘like-like’ you.” He giggles a little as he says it, but then immediately becomes somber again, because this is the moment of truth.

“Okay.” Rin says, and Nitori can’t guess if that’s and ‘okay, I like you too’ or and ‘okay, it’s time for me to get a new roommate’, so he waits for Rin to continue.  “Okay.  Does that mean I can, um.  Do you wanna, like, kiss?”

Rin sounds kind of shy, and also still plenty confused.

“Not if you don’t like me.”  Nitori tells him.  “I mean, I don’t want you to kiss me out of pity, or anything.”

Rin promptly leans over and kisses him, at that.  It’s kind of awkward, especially once their tongues make their way into the others mouth, because Rin’s teeth are sharp.

It feels nice, though, and once they come up for air Nitori starts giggling happily, and then Rin starts laughing too, and pretty soon they’re holding their stomachs laughing for no reason other than happiness.

“Have I ever told you,” Rin says, once they’ve finished laughing, “How much I love this blanket fort thing you started?”

…

_It goes on like this:_

…

“Rin-chan!  Ai-chan!  We’re gonna go get ice cream!  Do you want to come?” a loud voice – Nagisa’s – yells as the dorm door bangs open, and Rin goes silent and still on top of him as he does the same.

“We,” Rin growls, “Are busy.”

“Ooh.”  Nagisa says, “I see.  Well.  Have fun!  Be safe!  Rin, make sure Nitori can still swim tomorrow!”

The door shuts with a bang, but not before Nitori hears Ryugazaki-kun lecture Nagisa for his brashness, and Tachibana-senpai yell a quick ‘sorry’.

Nitori is incredibly thankful for the blankets blocking the others view.


End file.
